Child-killer town in fear again 10 years on

Thousands of posters have been plastered across Belgium after two schoolgirls disappeared from the same town where the paedophile murderer, Marc Dutroux, struck 10 years ago.

Pictures of Nathalie Mahy, 10, and Stacy Lemmens, 7, have been placed in bars and train stations. Police questioned a suspect yesterday who approached them on Tuesday after his picture was screened on Belgian television.

Abdallah Ait-Oud, 38, who was seen near where the girls disappeared in Liege in the early hours of Saturday, denied any involvement. As he was questioned at the Palais de Justice, police searched Mr Ait-Oud's house in Liege. He was later charged with kidnapping.

Cédric Visart de Bocarmé, the Liege prosecutor, said the interrogation had so far failed to produce any clues. "We still hope to find them alive," the prosecutor told RTBF television.

The two girls disappeared at around 1.30am at a street party in the east Belgian town where Marc Dutroux abducted two of his victims in 1995. The girls were last seen playing beside an inflatable castle outside the Les Armuriers cafe where their parents were drinking.

Catherine Dizier, Nathalie's mother, and Thierry Lemmens, Stacy's father, who are in a relationship, were surrounded by their four other children. The couple, who have been criticised for keeping their children up late, were recently forced to hand over their one-year-old baby into the care of social services.

As they prepared to go home in the early hours of Saturday they noticed that the two girls were missing and notified the police. Sensitive to criticism that police incompetence gave Dutroux a free hand, a helicopter was sent up to search the river Maas.

A ground search was also launched in forests and scrubland near where the girls disappeared in the neighbourhood of Saint-Leonard.

Police decided to release pictures of Mr Ait-Oud, the "primary suspect", who is the boyfriend of a waitress in the cafe where the girls' parents were drinking. Mr Ait-Oud, a Belgian of Moroccan origin who is reported to have left the bar at around the same time as the girls were last seen, was jailed in 1994 for the rape of his 14-year-old niece.

It is just over 10 years since Marc Dutroux abducted two eight-year-olds, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, from near their homes in Liege. They were found dead more than a year later.